Sunday, 23 October 2011

Looking back/forward

So, since last time. Well, the climbing flat, my home for the past four years, has ended. That is the occupants have moved out rather than the flat has burned down... although that nearly happened at the end of year one there. There were certainly plenty of good times there.

For those were around, I'm thinking of Murdoch being a Christmas tree, Murdoch and Ben's climbing debates, building a woodie, learning to juggle, the day King Lines arrived, putting up the finger board, drinking a bottle of Jameson with Danny, Boost buying a red light bulb for the bathroom, Boost putting his lecture notes in the bin, the man downstairs complaining about my dancing shaking a picture off his wall, Stew throwing a Mars bar at the guy downstair's window, going round to the girl next door's flat party and not fitting in.... ooo we had a blast! The three of us (Nic, Murdoch and I) have moved on to new things. For me, I've moved in with my girlfriend which I think was very brave. I've only slept on the couch once and that was because Cath was away and I was drunk. Anyway, my new flat is dead close to Hynland Railway station which is great for getting out to Dumby (I'm still waiting for some good weather to get there though), or to the Kilpatricks, where I've done some running.

On the climbing front, well my skateboarding injury is pretty much mended... I have a good bit of keenness to get out climbing after a year of basically nothing. The first year of PhD-ing has been good fun, but on reflection I could've done more climbing. In recognition of this, a couple of weeks ago I bunked off work at short notice and headed to the peak with Cath. This was the first trip where there was no rain the entire time. What a lot of blue sky! As such, the tempo of the days was slow and peaceful, I meandered up a few easy solos and took Cath up some of the Diff's.

Next up is trying to get as much into my days as possible. Getting a few things done this year of my PhD will set things up for an good final year, hard work now will certainly pay off. Also, I'd like to work on my music skills, and chess skills, and get in shape for climbing hard projects. Optimism... It might happen!